Yesterday And Today

The Beatles were starting to spend more time in the studio, churning out singles and albums at a slower pace than in the heady rush of '63 and '64. Yesterday And Today (or "Yesterday"... and Today, as it was printed on some early proofs and on the finished LP's back cover) was the last Capitol Records-assembled US package, and it features some of the band's best material from the mid-point in their recording career.

Two tracks from Help! appear here (that album's title track and Act Naturally, both of which were released together as a single in 1965 in the US), along with the four cuts excised from Rubber Soul (Drive My Car, If I Needed Someone, Nowhere Man and What Goes On).

Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out, issued as a single, are also included, and there's a generous preview of the upcoming Revolver with the songs I'm Only Sleeping, Doctor Robert and And Your Bird Can Sing (all of which would be cut from the US version of that album).

The album would, of course, become notorious shortly after its release for non-musical reasons: The Beatles had sent Capitol a Robert Whitaker shot of them dressed in butcher smocks and draped in plastic baby doll parts and hunks of meat.

Reviewers, disc jockeys and parents groups in the US were outraged by the photo which was printed on 750,000 copies of Yesterday And Today, and in a mad scramble, Capitol came up with a safer alternative (see below), a shot of The Beatles situated around a steamer trunk.

Before actual copies could be printed with the "Trunk" photo, replacing the now-infamous "Butcher" cover, labels with simply stuck on a sizable number of the original LPs. Those albums, referred to as "first state" covers, are collector's items today.

Tracklist

1. Drive My Car2. I'm Only Sleeping3. Nowhere Man4. Doctor Robert 5. Yesterday6. Act Naturally7. And Your Bird Can Sing8. If I Needed Someone9. We Can Work It Out10. What Goes On11. Day Tripper